2022 SsangYong Musso on/off-road review (inc. 0-100)

CarExpert

SsangYong has finally found a buyer! So now it becomes one of the better value dual-cab utes on the market. Paul Maric gets behind the wheel of the 2022 SsangYong Musso XLV to see if it’s any good!  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More SsangYong content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ssangyong More SsangYong Musso content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ssangyong/musso  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 01:05 Interior 03:55 Infotainment 05:27 Safety Tech 07:08 Practicality 08:18 On Road 11:12 0-100 km/h 14:15 Off Road 15:41 Verdict 20:27  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #ssangyong #musso #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So we have reviewed the SsangYong Musso already, but there is now a facelift.

00:05 There it is right there, and I have some more exciting news. It looks like SsangYong has

00:09 actually been bought out now. So the previous videos we've shot on these, I've told you

00:12 to just take it easy until we find out what's happening with the company, because they declared

00:17 bankruptcy. Well, it looks like they now have a buyer, and that means that you can buy with

00:21 confidence knowing that the company will still exist. This right here is the top specification

00:26 Musso XLV Ultimate with the Luxury Pack. So it's priced at just under $43,000 before you

00:33 add on the $3,000 Luxury Pack. This competes with things like the Mitsubishi Triton, the

00:38 LDV-T60, and the Great Wall Motors Canon. And if this is too expensive, the whole range

00:44 kicks off at just under $35,000. So we're going to do a detailed review of this car,

00:49 so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of the review, you can use the time codes

00:52 up on the screen there, or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below.

00:56 And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. That

01:00 way you'll find out every single time we tell you about cars that have been saved from bankruptcy.

01:06 Now let's talk exterior. So you've got six external colours to pick from, and all but

01:10 white, a $495 extra. Now what about this design? So you can see here the facelifted section

01:16 is this whole front, so it's got a much bigger grille now. It looks like the big SUV version

01:21 that they sell. The rest of it is kind of the same though, the headlights look pretty

01:25 similar. In terms of the design of that grille, so it's a big open space there for cooling,

01:30 but then the sides here are all blocked off. The finish has this sort of 3D effect on it,

01:36 and then it gets dark as you head down with the radar module down the bottom. Now I apologise

01:40 for the car being very dirty, one of my colleagues got it stuck this morning, so that was before

01:45 we filmed. Anyway, over on the side here, headlights. So they still haven't upgraded

01:50 these headlights, so they still use Bizen, and it's one of the few cars on the market

01:54 that has this ancient headlight technology, but hopefully they will at some point upgrade

01:59 to LED headlights as well. Fog light down the bottom there, and then we'll whip around

02:04 the side. You've got a set of 18-inch alloy wheels, so this has a piano black finish on

02:09 it. Decent amount of profile on that rubber, but if you are going to do any sort of off-roading,

02:13 this is pretty much a highway terrain tyre, you'll want to get some chunkier off-road

02:17 tyres, a bit of wheel arch protection there as well. It is worth noting as well that the

02:21 XLV, which is the one that we're looking at here, is 300mm longer and comes with an extra

02:26 250 litres of payload. The entry level to the XLV range is leaf sprung, so you get that

02:32 extra payload capacity as well, whereas this here, the Ultimate, retains the coil springs,

02:38 so that means you are taking a slight hit there in terms of payload. So if you do want

02:41 to sacrifice some luxuries but need the payload, you're going to have to go to the entry level

02:45 of the range. Now up the top here, we've got a camera built into the side here, an indicator

02:49 in that wing mirror. No side steps, so it's fairly bare down the side, and it's pretty

02:53 disappointing to see just this plastic grab handle here on the side, especially on the

02:58 top spec model. I would have thought this would be body coloured or at least be a nicer

03:02 finish than that sort of scratchy plastic. Come around to the back, being the long wheel

03:06 base, let me show you what that means. So that means you're getting 1600mm of load length,

03:12 1100mm between the wheel arches, and around 570mm of load depth. It also translates to

03:18 a payload of almost 900kg. In the tray, you've got these hooks off to the sides, but there

03:23 is no 12V outlet or anything sort of too fancy. There is no torsion bar here, which means

03:27 the tray is pretty heavy to close. Well, heavy if you're a KFC loving weakling like I am.

03:33 Over here, you've got incandescent globes, no LED, which is a great shame. More so, you

03:39 get 4x4 there to indicate that it is the 4x4 model, and then SsangYong lettering. Finally,

03:44 you have a 3500kg brake towing capacity. Now, tell me in the comments section, are you excited

03:50 that SsangYong has found a buyer and that everything has now been saved? Let me know

03:54 what you think down there.

03:55 So we're inside the Busso. Let's start off with the key. Here it is. So you have lock,

04:00 unlock, panic. On the back there, you've got the SsangYong logo, and watch this, flip out

04:06 key. I like that. This is a proximity sensing key. So in your pocket, grab the door handle,

04:12 and then once you're inside, you have a stop/start button. Okay, so what about the presentation

04:17 of this? I think it just looks nice. And then when you actually have a look at it a little

04:22 closer, you can see why they've kind of coined this the ultimate and the luxury and that

04:27 type of thing. So you've got these soft touch materials along the top there. Look at this,

04:31 you've got like this perforated leatherette material here with exposed stitching, and

04:36 then this faux carbon setup along the top of the dashboard there. It's just nicely presented,

04:41 it's minimalist, it doesn't really do anything too crazy. And for the price that you're paying

04:46 for this, this feels a whole lot more premium than what you're getting in some of the

04:50 competitors. Even down to like the screen ahead of the driver there and the seats themselves

04:53 with those perforations for the cooled seats. I think it's a cool setup.

04:56 Okay, so touch points over here. That is softish but firm when you push in a little further,

05:02 and then the door is the same sort of thing. How soft are they? Well, we've got our geometer,

05:06 we've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this car compares to others,

05:11 have a look at the link in the description. And what about build quality?

05:14 Feels not too bad, it's all fairly solid, and the final thing we check is the doors. Let's

05:22 have a listen to this. Sounds good, nice and meaty. Let's talk infotainment. So you have an

05:29 8-inch infotainment system. I would have hoped that with the facelift of this car, in addition

05:35 to the LED headlights, they would have changed the infotainment system because it is pretty dated,

05:39 it doesn't really feel cutting edge and it is very basic. So in terms of the features,

05:44 you have AM and FM radio, it goes through a six-speaker sound system. Sound system is okay,

05:50 not really that sort of crash hot, so if you do like your music, you're probably not going to be

05:55 blown away by it, but you do get smartphone integration, which means you can do, and because

06:00 it's a Korean car, it's going to keep coming up with that message, you do get the ability to send

06:04 music through the infotainment system and also do your voice commands. So you get Apple CarPlay

06:09 and Android Auto, both of those are wired. I'll show you what Apple CarPlay looks like.

06:13 So full screen integration, it's not the sharpest screen in the world, so you can see there it's

06:19 quite sort of pixelated, but it moves between the menus okay, it's just a tiny bit laggy.

06:23 And this is what Android Auto looks like. So again, full screen integration,

06:28 slightly laggy as you sort of move between the different screens there, but it's okay.

06:34 In addition to that, you can also just connect your phone over Bluetooth and that will do all

06:38 of that work for you. Voice recognition button here as well for interacting with your phone.

06:42 Now, ahead of the driver is a screen that gives you information on Trip Computer,

06:46 plus a number of other menus, so I'll run through those quickly. You can see Trip Computer,

06:50 you also have a digital speedo, and then inside those menus, you can also then flick through

06:55 to other settings, other displays there for the digital speedometer, which I think is pretty cool,

07:01 all your safety settings, radio, and also the compass heading as well. So nice little setup,

07:06 discreet, but does the job nicely. The safety side of things is interesting. So you have

07:10 autonomous emergency braking, you've got an auto-dimming rear vision mirror, you have a

07:14 lane departure warning and a lane keeping assistant, a blind spot monitor built into

07:18 the wing mirror and rear cross traffic alert, but there is no ANCAP safety rating. So this car has

07:23 never been crash tested, which is a little bit disappointing, but one of the other cars in the

07:28 family that shares parts with this, which is the big SUV, that has been crash tested and got five

07:34 stars. So I'm not saying that it does, but I would assume that this would then have a similar rating

07:40 given the structure is fairly similar. Now, in terms of parking, you've got front and rear

07:44 parking sensors and a 360 camera. Let's have a quick look at that. I'll show you what that looks

07:48 like. The camera is actually pretty good. So that is your rear view. It's then split screen with

07:52 this top down view. What you can do is flick between the screens. You've got the left-hand

07:57 side of the car there, the right-hand side, and then the front. The only thing I don't like though

08:02 is with the rear view, if I engage reverse here, it points to the ground. So instead of being able

08:07 to see out towards the road and what's going on around you, it points to the ground and it's

08:12 great for loading a trailer, but not great if you actually need to see what is up here in that cut

08:17 off region. Moving on to practicality, down the bottom here, in terms of your connectivity, you've

08:21 got one USB port, one auxiliary outlet, and then two 12-volt outlets. Where are you going to put

08:27 your phone? Well, you've got a sort of pad down the front here that you can sort of rest your phone

08:32 on, but strangely it's got like a divider in it. You can whip that out if you need to, but weird

08:36 setup. You can put your phone in the cup holders as well. And what about your coffee cup? Well,

08:41 I don't know where it is, so we're using this instead. That fits in nicely there. And there's

08:47 also teeth as well, so your coffee isn't going to escape. What about just a standard bottle? Well,

08:52 we've got our empty one here. That goes into there pretty easily. And then inside the driver's door,

08:57 that fits in very nicely. Let's try our big one, see if that goes into there. Perfect. That fits

09:03 in great. So that is good news. Other storage. So centre console here, nice and deep, big open

09:09 space there too. You've got a glove box, which is pretty reasonably sized as well. Even if you put

09:14 the manual in, there's still going to be enough room to put other odds and ends in there. And

09:18 then at the top here, you've got a holder for your sunnies. Okay, and what about your comfort features?

09:23 So there's a fair bit going on here. It is worth keeping in mind that this car has the optional

09:27 luxury pack. So it's an extra three grand, brings with it sunroof, dual zone climate control,

09:33 and Nappa leather, and a few other bits and pieces. So make sure you do your research on

09:37 that first before you buy, just in case you want that as well. So you get dual zone climate control,

09:41 which is controlled over here. You have heated and cooled seats for the front row. You have a

09:46 heated steering wheel. Seats themselves have that Nappa finish. They are electrically adjustable,

09:51 so you can go forwards, backwards, you can move the backrest forwards, backwards,

09:55 you can lift the front, the back, and you also have lumbar support as well. Seats themselves

10:01 are really nice and comfy too, especially if you're doing long distance drives. The steering

10:06 wheel has both tilt and reach adjustment, and then in terms of our reach test, easy, easy,

10:12 lemon squeezy. Okay, backseat. Now, before I start talking about this, I don't love the fact

10:17 that there's like a metal bit on the door that sticks out, because when you're getting in and

10:21 out, you kind of nudge yourself on that. So it's a bit of a silly design. But once you are back

10:25 here, you have a reasonable amount of knee room. I would have expected more given how big this thing

10:30 is, but yeah, my knees are sort of on the seat there. Toe room is okay. Headroom is really good.

10:36 What other creature comforts have you got? Well, you've got mat pockets here. You've got air vents

10:41 to keep you nice and cool. No device charging, unfortunately, but you do get a centre armrest

10:45 here with two cup holders. Holds our bottle in okay, but because it doesn't have teeth,

10:50 it kind of just flops around a bit, and then that can fit inside the door as well. You've

10:54 also got heated seats for the two outboard seats as part of the luxury pack. Disappointingly,

10:59 there's no storage behind the seats. You can kind of store stuff under here, but it's not exactly

11:05 the most versatile space. Some utes actually have seats that fold out to give you a bit more sort of

11:10 usability in this backspace. Okay, so we're on the road in the Musso. Outside of the facelift,

11:18 there hasn't been any change to the engine, but that's not such a bad thing. It's a 2.2-litre

11:23 turbocharged four-cylinder diesel engine, makes 133 kilowatts of power and 400 newton metres of

11:29 torque, and that's all mated to a six-speed Aisin transmission. Look, it's not the most

11:34 amount of torque in the world. 400 is now sort of well and truly behind the rest of the pack.

11:38 We've got a lot of the other competitors that are at 500. Even the LDV-T60 is at 500 newton metres

11:44 of torque now, so I think they probably need to do a little bit of work there, and you can kind

11:48 of feel it behind the wheel. It's not underpowered, but if you sink the boot in, you just sit around

11:54 waiting for things to happen. It's not really the quickest thing to get up and running, which is a

11:59 little bit disappointing because the rest of the package isn't actually that bad. And the reason I

12:03 say that is because the ride is weird. It is really soft and cushy and comfortable. So they've

12:11 done away with the leaf springs on the top spec of the XLV, and the coil springs just do a really

12:15 good job of just rounding everything out. It probably is on the softer, softer side, which

12:20 means if you are doing a country road drive and you hit some of those continuous undulations,

12:24 it will sort of buck about a little bit, and it's not the most confidence-inspiring thing.

12:29 But if you do need a comfortable ute that is comfortable when it doesn't have load in the back,

12:34 this really does sort of fit the bill. In terms of fuel economy, SsangYong claims a combined

12:39 average of 8.9 litres per 100km. We are currently sitting on 9.6, so pretty close to that claimed

12:47 figure. What about your drive modes? Well, you've got three to choose from using this button here.

12:51 You can switch between winter, eco, and power. They're all such inspiring names, aren't they?

12:58 Okay, so we're in power mode now. Let's give it a little punt through here. See how we go.

13:05 It's got a fair bit of body roll, but that only so much as to be expected. I was actually

13:10 surprised by the steering feel. It's actually not terrible. Like, it's light in terms of the

13:15 feedback, but you can kind of feel what it's doing mid-corner. So I think it's pretty impressive

13:19 that a ute actually has some kind of steering feel to it when you're going around corners.

13:23 And turning circle, 12.2 metres. It's actually not terrible for a four-wheel-drive ute. It means

13:33 you're going to be able to get away with doing u-turns in and around the city, and the steering

13:37 at low speeds is super light as well. Given the size of this thing, that's going to be important

13:41 for manoeuvring into tight parking spaces. I'll explain this in a bit more detail when we go

13:46 off-road, but unlike some of the other utes in this segment that can drive on sealed surfaces

13:51 in four-wheel-drive high range, this can't. If you've just got two high, if you switch to four

13:55 high, you're basically going to do damage to the drive line, potentially, if you drive it on a

14:00 sealed surface. But it does have a built-in air locker, which acts as a rear differential lock.

14:06 So I'll run you through that when we do go off-road, but for on-road driving,

14:10 you can only drive in two-wheel-drive. SsangYong doesn't have an official 0-100

14:16 time, but we put it up against our stopwatch and this is how it went.

14:19 [Car engine]

14:34 So what's visibility like? Well, it's not really a commanding driving position. You don't sit up

14:39 really high, and I think that's better because, I don't know, I'm just sick of feeling like I'm

14:43 sitting on top of the car. This is a good sort of middle ground, so I can see clearly down the

14:47 front of the car there. I've got a blind spot monitor built into that wing mirror. The wing

14:50 mirror is pretty big too, and visibility out the rear is excellent. That envelope is huge,

14:55 and of course, when you are parking, you've got front and rear parking sensors as well,

14:58 so it really has the whole kit and caboodle. The other really impressive thing here, I could

15:04 almost whisper to you guys and you'd be able to hear me. It is dead silent in this cabin. The

15:08 engine is really quiet, but there is barely any road noise coming into here, and it is just really

15:14 nice and smooth, and I think that's exactly what you want if you're going to be clocking up a lot

15:18 of miles and you need the ability to load stuff in the tray as well. This is kind of that perfect

15:24 compromise as a long-distance hauler and something that's able to then tow and put actual things in

15:29 the tray. So I really do wish more utes were like this where they focused on the refinement just a

15:34 little bit more than just outright power and torque.

15:40 So let's do some light off-roading, and I'll run you through some of the specs first. So you have,

15:45 in terms of four-wheel-drive modes, two high, four high, and four low, so you've got a low-range

15:51 transfer case. In terms of your approach and departure angles, approach angle is 25 degrees,

15:56 that's the angle of the face you can approach before you hit anything at the front of the car,

16:00 and 20 degrees is the departure angle, which is the same but in reverse. Ground clearance comes

16:05 in at 215 millimeters, and there is no differential lock, well no manual differential lock, there is

16:11 an Eaton air locker, and I'll run you through how that works shortly. If none of that makes any

16:15 sense, click up here to watch a video we shot explaining four-wheel-drive controls and how

16:20 they all work and that kind of thing, I think you might find that useful. So what we'll do first,

16:23 we'll go into four high and we'll attack our course here. It's pretty dry at the moment,

16:29 so it should be straightforward. Let's see how we go, we'll do our climb here, and then with our

16:34 descent there's a hill descent control, I'll give that a crack too. The good thing about the ride

16:38 being so gentle is that Log Mountain is like a very nice massage on the way up. So we're getting

16:45 up here without any dramas at all, I'm just leaning on the throttle and it's climbing.

16:49 So despite the throttle having that sort of laggy feeling off the line, it actually gets along okay

16:55 once you sort of stay stuck on it, which is pretty good. Okay, so let's engage our hill descent

17:00 control, one push of that, it's come up saying hill descent control is on. We'll see how it fares.

17:06 Whoa, that is going way too quick, that is way too fast. It's almost like it's not even working.

17:16 There we go, it's okay once you start going down the hill a little bit, but

17:19 yeah, I reckon that is way too quick. It's sort of set to about five kilometers an hour,

17:26 I can't make it slower or faster or anything like that. So yes, I would just be doing the work on my

17:32 own instead of letting it do that. Righto, let's head to our offset mogul. We're going to do a flex

17:36 test here to see how rigid the body is, but what I'll do is I'll leave this in too high for the

17:41 moment simply because I want to show you how the Eaton air locker works. So we'll get to that in a

17:47 second, I'll run you through it. Okay, so seesaw first. This feels like it's getting deeper every

17:53 single time I come through here. I'm going to switch off parking sensors as well.

17:58 It's like stomach churning each time we come through. Okay, so getting to the center section

18:06 here, we'll wait till we've got those two wheels in the air, which is there. Okay, so that's full

18:12 flex. Let's see how that goes. No dramas at all, so able to open and close the doors, which is

18:18 pretty impressive when you look at the wheelbase of this car. It is huge, so at this position here,

18:23 where we're flexing the body, in theory, it should really sort of not be able to close the doors. So

18:31 pretty impressed with that. All right, let's run through here and we'll get to

18:35 our offset mogul, and that's where I'm going to be able to show you how the Eaton air locker works.

18:41 So remember, we're in two-wheel drive here, and I also have stability control switched off. So as

18:46 we approach here, we're going to get to the section where our rear tyre is completely off

18:50 the ground right now. I'm going to roll off the brake and get onto the throttle, and you'll be

18:54 able to tell when it activates because it'll wait for there to be a difference in RPM between the

18:59 left and right of the rear axle, and then the diff lock will activate, and I suspect it's going to

19:05 be pretty harsh. So there it is. Holy crap, it's literally like someone running up and shunting

19:11 you in the back. So it is effective because it gets you out of there quickly, but I don't know,

19:15 I'd like to just be able to switch it on myself instead of having to rely for it to come on. By

19:19 that point, you're probably already stuck and it's too late anyway. Okay, let's do that once more.

19:23 This time around, I am going to be in four-wheel drive high range. Come on, parking sensors. And

19:29 I just want to see how it goes getting through here under its own devices with the traction

19:35 control and whether it is effective enough to just get the car through when that wheel is off

19:40 the ground. So here we go. We're approaching our section now. We'll set it up so that wheel's off

19:46 the ground. There it is, just there. I'm going to roll off the brake now and we'll see what happens.

19:51 Here we go. Feel that rear diff lock activate and it pulls us through without any dramas at all. So

19:57 yeah, it's a good system. In four-wheel drive high range, it will do most of the work for you. I

20:01 think if you found something really challenging though, you'd probably want to have a switch there

20:05 for the rear diff lock to just make it, you know, get through easier and knowing that it is actually

20:11 on instead of just waiting and hoping that it switches on on its own. So SsangYong Musso,

20:18 they've finally found a buyer and that makes me a whole lot more confident about recommending this.

20:22 At that price point, it is loaded with features. It even comes with stuff that I don't think you

20:26 find on any other utes in this segment, like cooled seats. In a work vehicle, it just makes

20:30 perfect sense. So it's quiet, it rides beautifully and it has plenty of room inside as well. It does

20:35 all that stuff great. It is laid down though by an engine that doesn't have enough punch,

20:39 I think 400 Newton meters in a vehicle this size just isn't enough, especially if you're going to

20:44 be towing and putting stuff in the tray. But you do get the benefit of a really quiet interior and

20:49 the engine is super quiet as well. So, oh, and the other thing as well, I would love to see a button

20:54 for the diff lock. I think that's the only other thing it's missing for off-road driving. So let

20:58 me know in the comments section below, have you bought a SsangYong Musso? What's it like to live

21:02 with? What's SsangYong like as a company to deal with? I'm keen for your feedback down there. If

21:06 you did enjoy this video, please make sure you share it with your mates. And if you haven't done

21:09 already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. But until next time,

21:13 take it easy.

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